What did you do with your RV this weekend? (10/31/2020 - 11/1/2020)

[DeltaRomeo]

Friday morning I had a part time sim side job cancel at the last minute, so out to the aiport to RVate!!!! BEAUTIFUL Wx after three days of drizzle. Warming up on the ramp a Bellanca Viking flew down the runway at 5 feet, talking to another plane somewhere else on the field. After a few moments I figured out they were trying to see if the nosegear was down and locked. Well, I'm the only one warming up with a skill set that might be useful, so.... "Hey Viking, RV on the ramp with 500 hours of formation if you want an in-flight inspection." Reply: "I've got a few thousand myself, please come up!"

The nose gear door blocked some of the view from the side in the normal parade position, but going a little acute solved that, and I could see the right pieces of strut were correctly overcenter and locked. "Looks locked to me." His wife in the pax seat was taking pictures - her first formation it turns out <grin>. They broke off, landed, and said everything was fine on the rollout over the radio. Fifteen minutes later when I was on downwind I saw where they were pushing their plane back in their hangar, so I drove over after landing. Turns out their gear deployed uncommanded and they didn't get a lock light on the nosegear. Yikes! He said he was a T-38 IP in a former life and they were on their way to a lunch when the gear came out on its own. They returned to the field and orbited, calling on the radio for eyeballs. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Got to do something productive!!!! Special thanks again to the ex-USAF and NAVY aviators on my field who taught me formation all those years ago. That and the value of keeping my mouth closed until I had information they could use (and didn't currently have).

At lunch another Viking owner on our field said that uncommanded gear deployment isn't uncommon on older Bellancas, and that a newer power pack design fixes that. He had it done on his.

A good RV flight... ;^)

[Saville]

Ran the tests on my Garmin GDL 82 ADS-B installation.

All tests passed except one - the 35 second transmission at several frequencies...90% of the time keying the mike zapped the GPS satellite links.

Ordering filters to see if that solves the problem.

Once I get this dealt with the airplane is back in service...it's been a long long haul

[plehrke]

Got up early and airborne yesterday before sunrise. Very interesting clouds look like someone used too much water in their watercolor making them run but still very bright.
With a full moon yesterday I had sunrise out the left wing at the same time full moon setting off the right wing.
Color along the mighty Mississippi River past peak but still spectacular.

[wjb]

Finished off phase 1 testing with a couple of great acro sessions with my hangar neighbor / AC 90-116 additional pilot / IAC member and judge. We put the plane through plenty of spins, rolls, loops, snap rolls, hammerheads, Immlemanns, and Cuban 8's .. sure was a blast and a great way to finish up Phase 1, providing lots of confidence that the plane is "good"

Now, I'm free to move about the country!

[SPX]

Great story, DR!

Yesterday, I flew my RV up to KVNY for a quick errand. That place is a cluster on the best of days.. and yesterday was no exception. If there's any question whether people are flying during Covid, just head over to Van Nuys and watch the traffic, and you'll have your answer.

I went up at 6,500' and then near Long Beach descended down to 4,500' to join the special flight rules area for the LAX Class B. The coast had some fog hugging it, but still the views were quite nice. Surprisingly, I was unable to see any smoke from the fires burning in SoCal (with TFRs active).

After wrapping up my business in Van Nuys, I taxied over to the self serve fuel, where strangely, it was being staffed. Their pump was down, so they were doing some sort of manual intervention to make it work and pump fuel. 21.9 gallons later, I was topped off.

After debating what to do next, I decided to head to Santa Paula, KSZP. Santa Paula is always very active on a weekend, and fun to planewatch at. A nice RV presence was shown.. in transient parking was an RV-9A, RV-4, and RV-6A. I walked over to Best BBQ, which is a good .. BBQ .. restaurant. About a five minute walk, and good food.

Getting ready to leave Santa Paula, a new friend, Mohammed, arrived in his RV-6A for some fuel. We got to chatting, and he said that he was maybe looking to sell his plane. He had never heard of VAF () but I suggested that he register here and offer up the airplane for sale. I also cautioned him to be ready to sell because it might happen much quicker than he's expecting!

Leaving Santa Paula, I climbed up to 5,500' and spoke to SoCal to coordinate the Coastal Route through the LAX Class B this time. Nice views again, and a pretty smooth flight home.

As an added bonus, I finally got my AOA settings correct in my AFS panel, so I now have the audio to go along with my AOA. The AOA display has always worked, but the audio did not. My issue was missing the note "If you are using the AOA Pitot tube as the AOA pressure source you should set the 18. Landing Warning Override to 1.0 , The factory default setting of 8 is only for the wing pressure ports."

2.1 hours flown, 3 landings, and 252 NM covered.

[scard]

It was just one of those magical flying weather weekends in Central Texas. A little "product testing" enroute to hand deliver product over BBQ. Clear, calm, cool, and at solo weight without the CFO limiting the fuel flow! What a marvelous couple of hours.

It is amazing that each year, after 14yrs, when the flying in the summer heat is broken by some nice cool weather, that the RV Grin returns with the amazing performance that it brings.

2020 - The year that many of us seem to have lost our razors.

[ColoradoSolar]

Nice little flight from C08 (home base) to KHLX for a bit of cross country time. Decided to get vfr flight following for some practice. It was nice that it was smooth air and not smokey for the first time in a while. Had my 6A for about a year now and it is more fun every time I fly it.

[pazmanyflyer]

So this happened today...

[N546RV]

Today I did some panel cutting. Cutouts are done for both screens, the com radio head, and the AP & knob panels. Still got to finish out the other two cutouts, for the GPS-175 and intercom. Once those are done and I verify everything lines up nicely, it'll be time to drill mounting screw holes and get the nutplates done.

[lr172]

We got a break from the overcast this weekend. Went down to Columbia, MO to pick up the middle son from college and took him to Ames, IA, where the youngest son goes to school. The oldest son drove in from Denver. We had a nice little family reunion. Repeated in reverse on Sunday. Winds were pretty intense both days. Saw 60Kts of wind at pattern altitude; 15G25 on the runway in IA.

Larry